New Delhi: The former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, will return to the political arena after three-four days following surgery after an attempted assassination, news agency PTI reported.
While speaking with the media at Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore where Khan is being treated for a leg injury he sustained during the attack, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) leader Hammad Azhar said the 70-year-old Khan would return to the political stage within two to three days.
Khan suffered a bullet injury in the right leg on Thursday when a gun-wielding man fired a volley of bullets at him and others mounting on a container-mounted truck in the Wazirabad area of Punjab province, where he was leading a protest march against the government.
According to the PTI report, Azhar said the party would continue its peaceful protest against the "attempted assassination" of Khan. Khan's attacker was "a religious fanatic engineered at a studio", he emphasised.
In a televised address, Khan alleged that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and Major General Faisal Naseer were behind the sinister plan to assassinate him just like the former Punjab governor Salman Taseer who was killed in 2011 by a religious extremist.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sharif on Saturday urged Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial to form a full court commission to investigate Khan’s allegation of his involvement in the attack.
"I think that this time there should be an immediate decision on the basis of justice. I request the chief justice to form a full court commission with all honourable and respectable judges for the greater interest of this country and to end this discord and chaos,” he said during a press conference in Lahore.
"I will immediately, via a letter in writing, request this and I hope this request will be supported in favour of people. And if you do not accept this request then these questions will remain forever. This fitna (mischief) and sazish (conspiracy) will be buried only when facts come to light,” he said.
Imran Khan also claimed that an FIR was not being registered as some people were afraid of (some names). The controversy around the FIR deepened after the PTI party members' alleged reluctance to register the complain. However, the police denied having received any application from party leaders. While the Punjab Police took into custody at least three suspects linked to the shooting, they denied having received any application from the PTI for an FIR.
Khan’s nephew Advocate Hassaan Niazi told the Dawn newspaper they had submitted the application at the police station, but the personnel did not provide them with any receipt for the same.
He said they “left the application on the table” and came back. Later, he tweeted, “SHO Wazirabad and DPO Wazirabad refuse to even take the application. 48 hours gone. Police refusing to take applications. Telling applicant Zubair Niazi (PTI Lahore General Secretary) to take out that ONE name. They say the crime minister’s name is fine.”
(With Agency Inputs)